Monday, June 22, 2009

Hex #11 & 12 (1986)

After seeing Jonah Hex on the Batman Brave & the Bold cartoon last weekend, I decided to seek out a couple issues of the 18-issue Hex series from the 80s. I understood this book featured gun-fighter Jonah Hex stuck in a post-apocalyptic future where his skills were in high demand and his twisted justice still worked.

Michael Fleischer does a write a comic that supposedly takes place in that environment. Sort of. These two issues are set in New York City (complete with Twin Towers), but it didn't really seem so post-apocalyptic. There were no mutants or crazy monsters, just mobsters, corrupt city officials, and humanoid robots called Terminators (interesting, huh?). Hex seems to be searching for Stilleto, a tough lady who has fallen in with a women-fighting league. She can more than handle things there though, as she seems like a capable fighter. Hex is easily hornswoggled into hunting down New York's future-Batman, a hero who idolized our Bats and now keeps the city streets gun-free. After the requisite fight, Hex and Batman team up to take on the raging Terminators as they attack the city with lasers. Here's the best part. Hex beats one Terminator by dropping two skyscrapers on it. Bats beats one by dropping the Brooklyn Bridge on it. And Hex beats the final robot by blowing up a power plant. The sheer casual destruction from these two "heroes" proabably out-does the robots themselves!

This was an amusing look at an old comic, but I didn't find a lot here to bring me back. Hex seems like a very generic protagonist, and he's not as interesting as he was in Lansdale and Truman's Vertigo Hex series.

Tex's art is nice, more classic looking that I'm used to, but the antagonists don't give him room to impress. Is Hex wearing a biker-gang vest in this? I think so...